Cambodia calls EU trade threat ‘extreme injustice’

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) – Cambodia’s foreign ministry on Thursday said a decision by the European Union to ramp up trade pressure on Cambodia over human rights concerns was an “extreme injustice”, adding it risked destroying decades of development progress in the country. The European Union last week said Cambodia would lose its special access to the world’s largest trading bloc as a response to human rights concerns surrounding a July election which extended Prime Minister Hun Sen’s three decade rule. “The Cambodian government can only take this decision as an extreme injustice when the EU blatantly disregards the considerable progress made by the country, despite its recent tragic past,” Cambodia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Thursday. Read more here